A Perfect Storm Of Leadership
by Miki Saxon
It seems that every time the leader of a corporation-in-trouble replies to the question, “What happened…?” the answer is that a ‘perfect storm’ of factors caused the problems.
Steven Pearlstein offers some great comments on this attitude, but it was what he said near the end that really resonated with me.
“What capsized the economy was not a perfect storm but a widespread failure of business leadership — a failure that is only compounded when executives refuse to take responsibility for their misjudgments and apologize.”
Accountability and remorse.
We demand these from our kids when they screw up and our mates if they cheat, but we seem willing to accept “reasons” from our corporate leaders.
Over the years we watched corporate leaders in Japan and Korea apologize publicly, heads bowed, for their actions and then resign in shame. Many of us considered it a quaint action stemming from a culture far different than ours. Some found it amusing and a few thought it was faked.
But think about it, how many of the executives you saw apologizing for the problems they caused have surfaced as head of another major corporation or in other leadership roles. In the US they land on their feet before the dust settles.
In the startup world failure is considered a badge of success, but only if the person has learned from it.
You can’t learn from something if you don’t recognize and admit your responsibility and feel remorse for mistakes that were avoidable.
A truly perfect storm would come without any warning and that probably doesn’t happen even once a century.
Your comments—priceless
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Image credit: flickr
December 15th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I agree, Miki. The attitude that you don’t have to accept responsibility has been a failure of our educational system and parents who are worried about their children’s self esteem.
In my years teaching college I have heard all kinds of excuses, as if somehow if the student comes up with a good enough excuse, the teacher will wave a magic wand and say, “All is forgiven.” No way! I teach “No excuses, no explanations.” Say you screwed up, accept the responsibility, learn from the mistake, and move on. The people who can do that are the true leaders, and there are precious few of them around.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Hi Jean, thanks for stopping by. I agree with you and ish there were more teachers like you out there.
But what I find really interesting is that the folks who are using the perfect storm defense and other excuses are old enough to have been raised differently.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I agree with you on this fact. The ability to accept the responsibility is the key to success not only in business, rather in every profession. Everybody should have the mentality of accepting the responsibility of his past deeds.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Hi Deb, unfortunately “should” isn’t translating to “does” in our society. And, to be honest, I don’t see that changing any time soon based on the lack of accountability for kids.
December 31st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
If anyone knows about “perfect storms” it’s US Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer and Rescue Swimmer Mario Vittone who’s also one of our contributors at Weekly Leader. (http://weeklyleader.net). He wrote a very thoughtful post on this topic this week titled “Mea Culpa.” http://bit.ly/Mbig
Interestingly the term “perfect storm” gained popularity after Sebastian Junger’s bestseller and the popular movie of the same name starring George Clooney. While there was a convergence of unique and severe weather systems over those fateful days, the destiny of that vessel and the men aboard was determined by a series of poor decisions made by the captain. The “perfect storm” may have helped create the bestseller and blockbuster movie but it was not the root cause of the casualty. Unfortunately, the term has become a convenient and overused maritime metaphor for what otherwise is simply poor decision-making.
Enjoy this post and Leadership Turn. Thanks for sharing.
January 1st, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Hi Peter, thank you for stopping by and adding to the discussion.
You’re far more polite than I. ‘Perfect storm’ is the excuse du jour for so-called leaders to excuse not only their poor decisions, but also their greed-based decisions and their just-plain-stupid decisions.
I enjoyed the “Mea Culpa” post and encourage my readers to check it out.